


journeys end in lovers' meeting

by gellavonhamster



Category: Dark (TV 2017)
Genre: Don't copy to another site, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25427806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gellavonhamster/pseuds/gellavonhamster
Summary: When Regina Doppler was in high school, she used to have recurring dreams about the same boy. Or maybe it was he who dreamed about her, who knows.
Relationships: Aleksander Tiedemann | Boris Niewald/Regina Tiedemann
Comments: 13
Kudos: 51





	journeys end in lovers' meeting

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Все пути приводят к встрече](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25427611) by [gellavonhamster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gellavonhamster/pseuds/gellavonhamster). 



There hasn’t been such a heavy thunderstorm in a long time – even the power went out for a while. As they raise their glasses to the world without Winden, the rain outside is beating down in slant lashes, and the black silhouettes of trees are bending menacingly against the evening sky. Regina doesn’t have the heart to let the guests out into the storm; driving in such weather and with such state of local roads is a suicide, and Peter and Bernadette even came by feet. So she offers everyone to stay over. No one is really discontented with such turn of events – everyone’s cracking jokes as they share out the places available for sleeping. It feels like they’re all kids again, and this is an adventure. 

Peter and Bernadette get the couch in the living room, and some armchairs put together make a quite comfortable improvised bed for Katharina. Wishing for her pregnant friend to have the most comfort for the night, Regina gives her own bedroom to Hannah and Torben, takes all the necessary things, and moves to her mother’s room. Claudia has retired early, having told “the young” that she’s going to bed, but when Regina steps quietly into her room with a heap of bedclothes in her arms, the light there is on, and her mother is working on her laptop – no doubt writing another post for her blog on the history of Winden or taking part in a meeting of the members of Anonymous or whatever else the seniors who are more tech-savvy than most twenty-somethings might do on their computers. 

“There’s a raincoat on the chair in the living room. A yellow one,” Regina says, settling her pillow on her mother’s wide bed. “Where did it come from?”

“A yellow one, you say?” Claudia echoes, her eyes glued to the screen. “I found it in the attic. I put it aside to think which neighbourhood kid to give it to, and forgot about it.”

“How come we have it? I don’t recall myself or Peter wearing it.”

“My dear, how long have we been living in this house? Do you remember thoroughly all the junk we have? Because I don’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if your father bought that raincoat forever ago to give it to you, then stuffed it somewhere and forgot.” 

“Maybe,” Regina muses. For some reason she’s dying to know where the raincoat came from. Or it might rather be the wine she has drunk that’s dying to know that. 

Later, when her mother is already asleep, when everyone in the house must already be asleep, Regina is standing by the window, listening to the cacophony of rain, staring at the pool of light that keeps dancing under the swinging lantern. It’s weird, about that raincoat, and she feels weird, too. Hannah’s words about the end of the world come to her mind, but that’s not it, not really – it is more like something is about to start, but there is no knowing what. 

When she’s already in bed, it suddenly dawns on her what this is reminding her of: she used to feel something of the kind in her youth when she sensed she was about to dream about that boy again. 

***

The first time it happens, she’s fifteen, and the boy is not a boy at all – more like a young man, two or three years older than she in appearance. It’s her classmates that are _boys_ , but this one looks almost an adult, almost a bad guy from a movie, wearing a leather jacket, dark hair falling on his face. That is what Regina thinks when she sees him in the woods that night. Not “What am I doing in the woods, actually?” of something like that, because you don’t ask yourself that kind of questions in a dream. If you are in the woods, then you are meant to be in the woods. 

“Hey,” Regina says gingerly. The young man, who was looking around, gives a start, turns around, and finally notices her.

“Hey,” he says. Anyone would expect such a guy to have a haughty smirk and a contemptuous look, but he just smiles at her when he sees her, calmly and friendly. “Where on earth am I?” 

“In Winden,” Regina approaches him. Again, it does not occur to her in a dream that talking to a stranger in the woods might be a bad idea. “Are you lost?” 

He shrugs. “I guess. I, uh, came here from the highway? Can’t remember clearly. I just left home and came here somehow.” 

“Sounds like you’ve hit your head,” Regina remarks, which is yet another proof that she’s dreaming: in waking life she would never get smart like that with a strange guy who looks older and stronger than she. It doesn’t look, however, like the strange guy in question has taken any offence, because he just grins in response. 

“Perhaps I have. And what are you doing here, robbing the lone travellers?”

“Perhaps I am,” Regina fires back, and smiles hastily to make it clear she actually isn’t. Heavens, she doesn’t know how to talk to boys at all. If Hannah and Katharina saw her now, they’d die on the spot – if not of shame, then of laughter. “If you don’t remember how you got here, then maybe you should go to the hospital? I can lead you there.” 

“What about taking a walk first, since I’m already here, and then hospital or whatever? It’s nice here. Back where I’m from they’ve chopped all the woods down.”

The latest in the series of proofs that this is a dream: in real life such words would only have persuaded Regina further that he has to go to the hospital. 

But all of this is not real, so she says, “Then let’s go, I’ll show you the caves.”

And they head for the caves, and Regina tells her new acquaintance about Winden – how dreary and dull it is, with mostly nothing to do and nowhere to go, but at least the air is fresh and the trees are tall and ancient. Then they talk about school and music and some other nonsense, until Regina finally realizes that she forgot to ask a very important question. 

“Wait,” she stops at the very entrance to the cave and grabs the young man’s hand, and blushes at once, but doesn’t let go. “What is your name?”

He opens his mouth to reply – and she wakes up.

***

The feeling is so similar that the next morning she is even a little disappointed that the night had passed without any dreams. That’s silly, of course – she hasn’t dreamed about him for what, thirty years? And there have been enough men of flesh and blood in her life for her not to worry about the one who never really existed. 

But the slight disappointment doesn’t disappear, and the feeling that something important is about to begin doesn’t go away either, and that Monday Regina brings them along to work.

Waldhotel Winden is facing hard times – frankly speaking, Regina cannot remember if there have ever been any other times. Father converted his estate into a hotel when his young new wife, Regina’s mother, refused to live there. Claudia has never elaborated why she rejected that elegant old building, but the older Regina gets, the more often it crosses her mind that deep down her mother didn’t want to live under the same roof with ghosts – not just Bernd Doppler’s late first wife, but also the memory of herself as a child coming there to tutor little Helge. Sweet shy Helge who, according to age, should have rather been Regina’s uncle not her half-brother; who also refused to live in that mansion that smelled of ancientness and dignity with his equally sweet shy wife. Memories had driven the former residents out of the house, leaving it fit only for the strangers who come and go without any trace other than the payment for the room. Unfortunately, there have always been few such strangers: the comparatively pristine nature and the caves steeped in legend are not enough to turn an otherwise ordinary underdeveloped small town like Winden into a popular tourist destination. Presently, for instance, the only guests at the hotel are an elderly couple who checked in three days ago. 

It makes no sense to keep a lot of personnel in such situation, so it is Regina herself who is at the reception, while looking through the depressing financial statement for the last half-year. The only guests have gone out, the maid is cleaning upstairs, and when the bell rings above the front door, Regina looks up in involuntary annoyance – she has grown so unaccustomed to visitors that she has almost forgotten their arrival is supposed to make her glad. 

“Hello,” she says, having quickly collected herself.

“Good afternoon,” says the newcomer, a man about her age, broad-shouldered and imposing, in an unbuttoned black coat. “I’d like a single room, please. Surely there are any available at the moment?” 

“Oh, more than enough,” Regina can’t help commenting, smiling unhappily. “Your name?”

“Boris Niewald.”

Regina cannot explain why, upon hearing this, she immediately thinks there must be some sort of mistake. It is a name like any other – why couldn’t he be called that? And it is not that she was expecting him to have some other particular name – yet still she cannot fight the feeling that he was supposed to be called differently. That would have been explainable if she had met this man before, but she is sure it is the first time she sees him.

…almost sure. Something in his features seems vaguely familiar. But that must be just déjà vu – nothing unusual for her and most of the people she knows. She remembers being extremely surprised back in the day that her friends from the university could not recall ever experiencing it. Maybe Winden has some special aura. Ley lines, geopathogenic zones, that sort of thing. 

Maybe it’s just some collective mental health issues.

“I can offer you several rooms to choose from,” she tells him. “You may leave your suitcase in the luggage room for now, so as not to carry it with you.” 

***

“You know what I think?” Hannah begins in a sing-song voice. “I think,” she glances at Regina over the history notebook, while wearing her signature sly smile, “that our Regina has a crush.” 

“What?!” Regina frowns in confusion. That’s so unrelated to what they were just discussing, where did this even come from? “I think you’re thinking wrong.”

“And I think Hannah’s right,” Katharina declares. Great, now it’s two against one. It would have been an option to stand up pointedly and go to the kitchen to grab more cookies, but, firstly, then the girls would definitely decide they’re on the right track, and secondly, Katharina is currently painting Regina’s nails vibrant dark red – how would she leave with her nails not dried yet, and just with three of them to boot? “Spit it out, girl. Who is he?” 

Sometimes Regina cannot believe she’s really friends with these girls. They couldn’t be more different from her in their nature: the rebellious Katharina, quick-tempered and defiant, with bruises under the layers of face powder and sharp words for everyone who dares to look at her the wrong way; the elfin Hannah with her fox face, ambitious and perceptive, prone to imitating the older and more badass Katharina. And then there’s she – so… ordinary. The only remarkable thing about Regina is her good marks, but no one ever likes exemplary students, not even when in need of their help – especially when in need of their help. If it was not for her friends who are more adjusted for survival at school, it would have probably been tough for her, particularly in her childhood and early teenage years, when she used to wear thick-rimmed glasses. 

Regina loves her friends, but there are some things she prefers not to tell them.

“I don’t understand what makes you think I have a crush,” she tries to fight back weakly. 

“It’s just that every time I look at you at the lessons lately, you’re always up in the clouds with such cute zoned-out little face,” Katharina says, and tries to demonstrate at once just what kind of little face that is. Hannah giggles. “Come on, it’s not like it’s bad. On the contrary, we’re happy for you. Who is he? Does he know?” 

He must know, Regina thinks. We see each other once a month or two, go on walks, talk, hold hands, but all of this doesn’t matter because he disappears every time I try to ask him what his name is or tell him my own. Besides, there’s a tiny problem: I only dream about him, and he doesn’t actually exist. 

“There’s no one to know,” she tells them with an apologetic smile. Katharina and Hannah hang out with real guys after school, real guys who buy them ice cream and let them wear their jackets when it gets cold, so they don’t need to know that silly Regina (yes, it’s alright to be silly at sixteen, but not sillier than her peers, after all) is in love with someone who only exists in her head. “And I’m up in the clouds because… I keep thinking that school will be over soon, and I’ll be able to leave. We all will be able to leave. And there’ll be no more Winden for us.” 

“No more Winden for us,” Hannah repeats dreamily, and Katharina nods in agreement. It’s a perfect way to change the subject – the next instant they’re already sharing plans for the future, discussing where they’re going to enrol, where they want to go on holidays. Indeed, no crush looks as attractive as the prospect of leaving their native shithole for good. 

None of them will ever leave Winden for long, but at the time they do not know it yet.

***

Boris Niewald has come to their town as a representative of the company that is building a new shopping centre in Winden. He stays in Waldhotel Winden for a week, and as he comes back every evening that week, he and Regina spend some time talking before the night porter arrives and she goes home. Regina is not in the habit of making close acquaintance with the guests, but when he returns on the evening of the first day, she cannot help asking what his first impressions of Winden are, and then it all happens as if by itself. On the third day, they switch from _Sie_ to _du_. On the fourth day, she unlocks the liquor cabinet to take out a bottle of expensive brandy given a few years ago by her father’s friend, and offers him a glass on the house. 

On the seventh day, when he was supposed to check out, he asks her if it is possible to extend the reservation. 

“I still have some three days free,” he tells Regina. They’re sitting in the armchairs in the lobby; the elderly couple has already checked out, the maid has a day off, and it seems as if they’re not at the hotel at all, but at home. Her home or his; possibly theirs. “With all this construction I never got a chance to see the town.” 

“I’m afraid this town hardly has anything to offer you,” Regina laughs, toying with the glass in her hand. “We don’t even have a museum. Except the caves, perhaps.”

“The caves? I’ve heard something about them. The ones where someone is said to disappear every year?”

“Well, not every year, but there have been several cases. Usually these poor things get found after a day or two, however – dirty, hungry. Apparently there’s an entire labyrinth of natural origin, and the walls cave in sometimes. There are some weirdos who believe that there is the way to…” 

“The centre of the Earth?”

“More like the other dimensions. About ten years ago, some TV people even came to make a documentary, God. I don’t think it was ever released.” 

“That sounds appealing,” Boris chuckles. Regina likes his smile, his silver beard, his striking blue eyes. Perhaps she has a type, and her new acquaintance is the perfect match. Both of her husbands looked similarly – both the one who married her, as it quickly came to light, hoping to make a career at the publishing house of the only Winden newspaper, which was headed by her mother back then, and the one that cheated on her a year and a half after their wedding. In other words, both the one that she still never says hello to and the one she still exchanges birthday and Christmas greetings with. The latter and his wife had some kind of unprecedented abundance of currant in their garden last year, and they gave Regina two jars of currant jam; oh the small towns where everyone knows each other in many different senses. 

Perhaps her type was shaped by the fact that at the age of fifteen to approximately twenty she frequently dreamed about a handsome boy with precisely such beautiful blue eyes. What of it. 

“You don’t hurry home lately, I see” Claudia observes in the morning while Regina is making breakfast. Her mother is reading a fresh newspaper – undoubtedly thinking that without her being editor-in-chief, that newspaper has gone to shit. “Is he trustworthy?” 

“He? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Regina replies flatly as she puts oatmeal and dried fruit into the bowls.

“What, a she? Didn’t think you’d take after your grandmother, but it’s never too late to get to know yourself, I guess.”

“There’s no one, Mama,” Regina says determinedly. In two days Boris returns to Marburg. There is no point in starting anything. 

There is no point in starting anything – yet when on her day off Boris asks her out for dinner, she says yes.

There is no point in starting anything – yet when he kisses her in the hotel corridor it takes her some time to make herself pull away. 

“Forgive me,” Boris says when he sees her face. “I suppose I shouldn’t have done this.”

“That’s right,” Regina says and forces a smile. Tomorrow he’s leaving.

There is no point in starting anything – yet when he closes the door after himself and she takes a few steps down the corridor, she realizes suddenly that she doesn’t care. Then she turns around and goes back before letting herself change her mind and knocks on the door of his room. He opens at once. 

That night she feels madly young, young and loving and loved.

“I’ll come back as soon as I can,” Boris promises her when he puts the key to the room in her hand the next morning.

There is no point in starting anything, yet she thinks: come back to me. 

And, for some reason: come home.

***

At the high school graduation party, the girls from Regina’s class dance with their boyfriends or with the boys they hope to make their boyfriends, lay their heads on their partners’ shoulders, bodies pressed together, hearts full of excitement. As to Regina, she gets asked to a dance by Peter, her nephew-who-looks-rather-like-her-cousin, which is very nice of him. They keep stepping on each other’s feet and laughing about it, and then _Take My Breath Away_ gives way to lively disco, and Regina dances with Katharina and Hannah and then with Peter again and then with some kids who she hasn’t exchanged a word with throughout the entire school year. There are no more couples, just a single happy crowd, and they spin and throw their hands up in the air, like a record, baby, right round, round round.

Officially alcohol at the graduation party is banned. Unofficially, part of the parents and teachers who are chaperoning them all in the festively decorated gym does not care and another part is sneakily sipping something from thermos bottles and flasks themselves. Regina drinks a couple of glasses of the wine that Katharina brought with her in a juice carton. She doesn’t drink often enough to know much about such things, but two glasses mustn’t be too much. It mustn’t be enough to explain why, when she steps out to the porch to take the air and raises her eyes up to the sky, she sees what she sees and stumbles and almost falls down, taken by surprise. 

“You all right?” she hears a voice behind her back. Charlotte Tannhaus approaches her, looking rather curious than worried. “Are you going to be sick?” 

“N-no,” Regina tells her, with something that should ideally pass for a reassuring smile. “It just seemed like…” 

“Like?”

She and Charlotte Tannhaus have never been close, but now both of them are drunk, and besides, Regina is going to leave for the university soon, and whether anyone in Winden thinks her crazy shall lose all importance.

“Like there were two moons in the sky,” she says. ‘Then they merged into one.”

Charlotte nods pensively, as if Regina has just said something extraordinarily deep. 

“Maybe that was a vision,” she points out. “Like… we’re all at the crossroads now, right? School is over, life is beginning? Maybe the two moons are like two different paths.”

“That merge into one because they’re actually one and the same?”

“Possible. Or it might even be the third path, another one. Maybe.” 

Yeah, Regina thinks, they’re definitely drunk.

“I thought I’d be just leaning up against the wall for half the evening, but it turned out quite great. I wish you were there,” she tells her stranger in a dream that night.

“Yeah, I’d love to go with you,” he says, and then adds something strange:

“It’s a shame you’re not real.”

***

A month later – a month of phone calls and Skype calls, a month when Regina keeps reminding herself not to hope too much and still hopes more and more with each day – Boris comes back.

“I have to tell you something which will make you think that I’m not quite right in the head,” he tells her on the first evening after his arrival. This time he isn’t staying in Waldhotel – he’s staying at her place. “Or that I am lying and being incredibly bad at it.”

“Try me,” she suggests merrily.

“When I was young, I would often see the same dream. Or rather, different dreams about the same girl,” Boris comes up to her writing desk, picks up a framed photo – Regina with her mother and grandfather – and looks at it thoughtfully. In the picture, Regina is sixteen, she has voluminous curls and bright eye shadow in the true spirit of the eighties, and, in the opinion of adult Regina, she’s very small, funny, and good. Better than she thought herself back then, probably. “I wouldn’t say I used to be lonely at that time – I had friends, I had everything, basically – but every time I woke up hoping I’d see her again. I believe I was a little bit in love with her – as if with a singer or a teacher, you know, without any hope that my feelings might be returned. What kind of return might be there if she didn’t really exist, after all?” 

He puts the photo back on the desk, and turns to Regina.

“At least I was sure she didn’t exist. And now we’ve come to the part that will make you think me either a liar or crazy,” he smiles at her, but eyes her earnestly, clearly preparing to say something important, clearly wishing for it to be taken seriously despite all the jokes. “You look like her. Judging by this photo, you’re spitting images of each other.”

“What was her name?” Regina asks with bated breath. Boris frowns; he must have been expecting anything but such question. 

“I don’t know. I woke up each time I tried to ask her.”

Regina gets up off the bed and comes up to him.

“I think I also have something to tell you,” she says, “that will make you think me either a liar or crazy.”

Now, as luck would have it, it would be the time for the dream to end – but they are really there, really together, and what has started will not end at the crack of dawn, will not end if they let it go on, will not ever end.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.  
> Claudia wasn't present in the final scene of the show, but, since she exists in the origin world, I dared to assume that the empty chair at the table could be hers.


End file.
